Greeting cards are well known, and the marketplace for greeting cards is highly competitive.
Likewise, specialized containers for holding products, such as perfume bottles, are known.
There is a need for a combined greeting card and product container which includes the best of the greeting card and the container worlds.
The following are representative of patented products over which my invention improves.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,096,058 to Juravin et al. discloses a combined greeting card and candy holder which is essentially a box filled with candy having a decorative cover which makes it a greeting card. The Juravin greeting card and candy holder undoubtedly works well, and Juravin et al. even recognized the use of a series of panels for forming the candy container. However, Juravin has drawbacks such as a full-sized elongated reenforcing panel which is offset from the remainder of the Juravin et al. full-sized panels, whereby their blank is somewhat L-shaped in one of their embodiments. Some of the Juravin et al. embodiments eliminated that offset panel and achieved a substantially elongated blank. See for example the Juravin et al. embodiments of FIGS. 6-8 and FIGS. 9-11. The user removes the candy from inside the box through one of the small ends in a traditional fashion.
Another known device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,087 to Schluger, which discloses a combination product transmittal package and greeting card. Schluger has a product-receiving compartment which can be accessed from a front panel, unlike Juravin, yet has the drawback of a relatively complicated carton-forming blank.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,275 to Faiola et al. discloses a greeting card and package which includes a removable, transparent receptacle for a gift, such as a flower, which receptacle can be removed without damaging the card.
There is still a need for a combined greeting card and product container which overcomes the drawbacks of existing devices.
The use of terms such as "front", "back", "left" and "right", as well as all other relative and descriptive terms are for convenience only, and all equivalent structures and variations are intended to be within the scope of the invention.